"The complaint also alleges that the admissions policies of several high-performing charters with disproportionately high white enrollment -- including Lusher Charter and Edward Hynes Elementary -- are designed to exclude black students. Because these schools do not participate in the computerizedOneAppcommon enrollment process, the complainants say, they are much less known to parents at schools that are being closed.

White said those policies are not under the state's control. Those schools are overseen by the Orleans Parish School Board, and the state Board of Elementary and Secondary Education is constitutionally prohibited from forcing schools to join OneApp. Moreover, he said, the Recovery School District, which runs OneApp, has tried but failed to persuade the School Board to make those schools join.

"It is high irony that you criticize the people who have tried to create an open-enrollment policy across all schools and have only failed to get the most privileged schools," White said.